“To call Kim Jong Un an honorable man — a man who executed his uncle horribly, a man who had his half brother assassinated with nerve agents at a foreign airport,” Connolly said on CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Connolly joined other Democrats in condemning remarks Trump made at the White House earlier Tuesday, when the president voiced optimism that a meeting with the North Korean leader could happen “as soon as possible.”

“He really has been very open and, I think, very honorable from everything we're seeing," Trump said of Kim.

Connolly, who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and its Asia and the Pacific subcommittee, claimed that Kim is “licking his chops” and “opening champagne” due to Trump’s remarks.

“A man who runs gulags all over North Korea and absolutely runs the last Stalinist state on the planet an honorable man?” he added of Kim. “What in the world is going through Donald Trump’s head?”

Trump has in the past repeatedly invoked his “rocket man” moniker to refer to Kim, saying last year that the North Korean leader is “on a suicide mission.”

But the president’s tone has recently shifted as the Trump administration prepares for potential talks with North Korea over its nuclear program.

A meeting between Trump and Kim, which the leaders are hoping to have in May or June, would be the first face-to-face meeting with a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader.